This goes back about 35-40 years or so. My parents lived (still do, actually) in Brooklyn, and they had a detached garage in the backyard, which they rented out. For a long while they rented it to an Italian guy, who kept a car in the garage that he almost never drove. Not an expensive car at all. After a while the guy stopped coming around entirely, or paying the rent, and in fact was never seen or heard from again. Eventually my parents got the car title transferred to them in lieu of the unpaid rent and my uncle took it.
One of my brothers was recently speculating that this guy was a mafia hit man, and that this was the car he used when committing his crimes. He would have a reason to keep his rarely-used car off the street, so that it would be harder for police to track and less likely to be randomly spotted. And as for his disappearance, well …
[I actually don’t think there is such a thing as a mafia hit man in the sense of a guy who does that on a regular basis, and I think the hit men are guys who do more common mob business on a regular basis but who are ocasionally called upon to use their special talents. But I don’t know if that changes the speculation.]
Look, if I were a mafia hitman, no one would be at all suspicious of me. My lifestyle wouldn’t be sneaky… I’d be right out in the open with a cute little house with a picket fence. I’d be walking a cute little dog and chatting with all the neighbors.
And no one would suspect I was Italian (or even Catholic). I think I’d go with “My grandparents were part of the Jewish community on Cyprus.” It’s a small island, but one that people have heard of.
Ooh, maybe I’d have a big telescope in my front window, and drop comments about seeing Saturn’s rings from a local hill at 2 am. That way, me loading a long case in the car and being gone for half the night wouldn’t be suspicious.
I was under the impression that hitmen were both people who worked for the mob, but there were also independent contractors willing to commit murders for hire. So could be either
There are professional hit men in Thailand. A newspaper article one time claimed they number 200. For some reason, the upper-peninsula province of Ratchaburi is especially known for producing them.
I’m not familiar with urban development in Brooklyn, but I always thought they were a lot more people who had cars, than parking places to put them. Seems to me if you were a person who owned a car but rarely drove it, you might be willing to pay to keep it in a covered garage.
I would think that’s risky. You run the risk of being stopped by the police who notice the stolen license plates. The last thing a hit wants to do is attract attention from the police.
For an expensive car, yes. It doesn’t make any sense to pay hefty monthly fees for a non-descript car that you rarely drive. (Based on what ultimately happened, it would seem that the unpaid rent was at least as much as the value of the car.)
I asked my mother about it yesterday, and she doesn’t remember that the guy ever drove it. Though I would imagine that it’s possible that he took it out a few times and she didn’t notice. Especially if it was late at night.
She didn’t remember what he paid in rent, but thought it was a decent amount based on market rates at the time.
The very public hits in barber shops and spaghetti restaurants get all the attention, but most mob hits were of the “Let’s go for a ride” variety where the deed was done far from prying eyes and the body was never found. How much trunk space did this car have?
If I had that job, even on an occasional or part-time basis, I wouldn’t want: A) a vehicle and B) a rental unit that could be easily traced to me, especially one where the property owners knew what I kept in it, paid attention to when I came and went, gossiped about me, etc.
My evidence-laden vehicle, if I would even keep the same one, would be in someone else’s name and securely parked on someone else’s un-monitored property that had no ties to me.
I’d say he was probably holding the car for a relative who eventually just abandoned it, so he in turn just walked away from the rental. I actually did something similar with a house I just sold. Had a VW Golf which had developed serious engine problems that would cost more than the car was worth to fix. Because of how rural the house was no tow company would come pick it up to bring to the scrap yard. So, the car just sat in the driveway for 2 years. Eventually sold it to an armchair mechanic for $1 since the people who bought the house didn’t want it either.
